


Addiction

by hudson



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hudson/pseuds/hudson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael's relationship with alcohol through the years</p>
            </blockquote>





	Addiction

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LiveJournal 8-25-2006.

**Title:** Addiction  
 **Fandom:** Prison Break  
 **Characters:** Michael, Lincoln **(gen)**  
 **Prompt:** 060: Drink  
 **Word Count:** 608  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Summary:** Michael's relationship with alcohol through the years  
 **Disclaimer:** Paul Scheuring and a whole lot of other people who aren’t me own Prison Break.  
 **A/N:** Written for 60_minute-fics Trigger #2: _Cheers! How would your favorite character act if they were drunk? How many drinks would it take? What's their favorite poison? Do they drink all the time, or is it earth shaking when they do? Can they hold their liquor or do they spend the night worshipping the porcelain gods? Giggly or mean drunk? Horny or flacid?_

-

Of course it was Lincoln who got him drunk for the first time.

Of course he drank about six too many in an effort to prove that he could hold his own against his big brother.

Of course he threw up several hours later and cried when the room wouldn’t stop spinning.

And of course Lincoln sat up with him that night, feeding him water and guiding him to the bathroom, alternately laughing at him and wiping his mouth off after he puked.

Of course, because all of Michael’s worst experiences with drinking came when he was with Lincoln, and no matter how many times he’d tell himself _never, never **ever,** ever again,_ no matter how forcefully he told Lincoln _no, no, **no** tequila tonight, I’m serious,_ all Lincoln had to do was give him an imploring look and press ever so slightly _c’mon, Mike…_ and he was done for.

Once when Michael was twenty he sternly told Lincoln that he had an additive personality and that alcohol, especially considering their father, was a dangerous addiction. Like playing with fire, he said.

Lincoln snorted and passed him another beer, telling him to drop his psychology class.

When he was twenty-two, Michael swore off all vodka, forever, after falling asleep in the middle of a chemistry lab and lighting his shirt sleeve on the fire from his Bunsen burner. He managed just about three weeks when Lincoln showed up at his dorm room with a bottle of Absolut hidden in his jacket and a secretive grin on his face. Michael never knew where he got the money, but when Lincoln left early the next morning he left behind a brand new shirt draped over Michael’s desk chair, right next to the old one with a hold burned through the sleeve.

It wasn’t until he was in his mid-twenties that Michael began to realize that he wasn’t really an alcoholic as he’d previously feared. Every time he tried to quit drinking – or at least quit binge drinking to the point of debilitation – he’d only last as long as Lincoln wasn’t around. He went a clean seven months during which Lincoln was in prison, and they both got trashed on Lincoln’s first night out. Michael barely even made an effort to stay away from it, happy enough to have his brother back and willing to let the great debate about Lincoln’s life direction wait another day.

When out every so often with friends, he was usually content to calmly sip a bourbon on the rocks or slowly empty a bottle of beer over the course of an hour. But anytime Lincoln turned up on his doorstep, Michael was helpless to say no to the offer of alcohol.

It was a _the morning after the night before,_ when Michael showed up late and disheveled for one of his first meetings at his new firm with the taste of rum still sticky on his tongue after forgetting to brush his teeth, that he realized he didn’t have to make a choice between his life and alcohol.

It was Lincoln that he was addicted to – Lincoln who he couldn’t turn away when he turned up, Lincoln who he ran to at the merest beckon, Lincoln who he put his life aside for, and Lincoln who he would have to break himself away from if he would have any hope of his own life.

Years later, when Michael had gone cold-turkey off of Lincoln and then fallen hopelessly back to, Lincoln would call himself an anchor.

As much as Michael loved his brother and was willing to do _anything_ for him, he couldn’t disagree.


End file.
